I may be a bit late here cos I haven't seen TA for 3 weeks and I just got around to watching the last 3 episodes (Paris, Biscuits and Flip-It) on iPlayer and maybe watching all those episodes back to back has skewed my perception but I thought Melody got a SERIOUSLY easy ride on YF.

On the Paris task she immediately decided that the kids chair was a dumb idea then she asked a bunch of people what they thought of it and they ALL said it was a terrific idea but when one person mentioned that people in Paris use the Metro she got back on the phone and used that single comment to support her preconception that the chair was a bad idea.

She then (utterly disgracefully, IMO) spent a day in Paris making sales appointments and then refused to share any of them with the others - even with the two who'd been in the UK choosing the products.

LAS made a comment about how she had a bunch of awards which were very commendable but did nothing to demonstrate good business sense and she went back and told the others how LAS had said that it was very commendable that she had a bunch of awards... thus ignoring the actual point of what he said.

She also came up with the "popcorn biscuits" idea which bombed spectacularly while Tom's "snap & share" buscuits got a totally positive reaction and then, while talking to the others, tried to suggest that Tom's idea hadn't really been well-received whereas her utterly dire idea had been at least as well received.

How come nobody pulled her about ANY of this stuff during YF?

TBH, I tend to be prejudiced against attractive people in these sort of situations because when logic and reason fail they always have the option of getting flirty or sulky or weepy to get their own way but Melody seems to be hugely opinionated and selfish but they didn't pull her about any of that during YF.

I felt she got off with quite a lot on the main show too. She was awful the last few weeks, but still managed to get a "with regret" firing.

That being said, I feel that she seemed to take a lot from the experience. Maybe they didn't want to weigh her down with the negatives.

[quote=Si_Crewe;51290309

How come nobody pulled her about ANY of this stuff during YF?

[/QUOTE]

Because 'pulling people up' against a box of perceived crimes they've commited to complete some sort of 'tick box' appraisal is not the principle purpose of the show.

For Melody or ANY of the candidates.

It is a light hearted review of what happened, where candidates have the mickey taken out of them in a gentle way. Any indescretions or mildy extreme behaviouus are used but to create a fun show, not some sort of ultra tough interview; that's the modus operandi of the Final 4 Interview process - Claude step up.

It's not some form of Kangaroo court where 'justice' is handed out by panelists on behalf of we the people because we have a 'right' to make candidates account for their behavior.

(I have highlighted words picked from other posts used in these threads)

As I've said elsewhere in detail, based on my own corporate experience, what we see them do is completely contrived and bears no resemblence to what anyone does in a complete process in the real world and it's heavily edited too, to make good TV, not to demonstrate the principles and/or problems in delivering the step by step approach necessary to run business properly.

In reality, this reality TV programme is a bit of light entertainment, not a workshop at the Insitute of Marketing, nor the next case up before the Beak at the Old Bailey.

And the phrase 'don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes' would be applied well to this programme.

Of course, as I now understand much better having had it pointed out to me, the fact that it is a Reality TV show where the impact on us viewers is designed to create an effect which forces us to judge and prioritise those we like and those we don't

But in my book, that doesn't actually mean that we have to fall in line with that agenda.

Bearing in mind the ways these shows are put together ( a friend of mine has been in one and told me the differences with the reality of the situation as against what went out), what are we making our judgements on?

As for the comment about good looking people (which I haven't highlighted), this is an interesting one.

Whereas, we all make sub conscious and very quick judgements of whether we like, dislike or are ambivulent to people based on their initial impressions of them, this is a basic anthropological reaction and doesn't have a valid basis for judging what others do in our modern incarnation where we can use rationale to overcome basic emotional predilictions.

Where such a comment/attiude is a candid and honest revelation, it is by definition, a bigotted and prejudiced modus operandi which I would politely suggest anyone who carries such a belief review just a tad for their own good and those they meet and deal with too.

I pity any poor and well meaning person who just happens to be blessed with good looks and who may well be the best operator going in their area of expertise, as they start out any activity in the company of a 'good looks' hater, they don't really stand a chance do they?

Also, whether someone is good looking is personal; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Anyone with an open understanding of their own tendency to judge people in a prejudiced way on their looks at least has the opportunity to check their own attitude and to give people a chance based on the merits of their actions, not the pros and cons of their image.

I accept that, in reality, it is far easier said than done, but I'd suggest people to start looking at what people say and do and evaluate both on their impacts, not prejudge them based on the size of the eyes, the height of the cheekbones or the luciousness of the lips of the person who said/did them.

There is no doubt that having said all the above, in the final albeit edited end result, Melody hoisted herself on her own pitard.

But I for one, will not heap any further criticisms on her seemingly self deluded and over-inflated claimed self image because of her looks.

After all, she wears far too much eye make-up, doesn't she?

This has come up with contraversial candidates before.
The main reason why there isn't a forensic dissection of the candidates behaviour is that this isn't Big Brother.
You're Fired is a general chat about this weeks show, a look back over the fired candidates performance, highlights and lowlights. But essentially its a lighthearted affectionate 'goodbye' to the candidate.
If it was a blow by blow goingover of the candidates wrong-doings in front of a baying crowd I doubt many of the candidates would come back to do it - remember that its filmed about six months later.

I agree with Tennisman and Shrike.

Much of the TA stuff is heavily edited for our entertainment, with red herrings and pantomime villains. The candidates probably agree to that before taking part on the show.
So it's only fair they get a chance to show another side of themselves on YFand the opportunity - together with us - to laugh at themselves, to restore their public image so to speak and for the public to correct the - often false - image they had been building for themselves based on heavily edited footage.

I think the candidates get some professional help with their performance on YF, which is why their behaviour can come across as somewhat rehearsed (in Melody's case). I do think she was given a bit of a hard time by Ruby Wax who seemed to get a bit too vicious for the format of the show and it clearly seemed to throw Melody a bit. Maybe even more so because she herself never got personal.

Socha, I spent about 2,000 words and far too much time voicing my concerns about Ruby Wax in at least 2 other threads over the last 48 hours.

You've summed it up perfectly in 2 sentences at the end of your post.

Melody is a fantasist who lied a lot. No one in their right mind would give her a job.

Do you actually have any evidence of that of is it just some random libel based on your personal dislike of her?

Did you watch The Apprentice on BBC1?

Leon and Natasha also both immediately decided the kids chair was a dumb idea. Two people said the chair was a good idea. Two people said that people in Paris used the Metro far more than they drove.


She shared her sales appointments with Leon. He sold the cress postcards in all but the last one, in which he sold the teapot-lights.


He did say that the awards she had were very commendable. He brought them up specifically to praise Melody about them. He then went onto a broader point about how, whilst they were very commendable, he needed to see more. If people read sarcasm into the first part of that then that's on them.


Snap & Share was Melody's idea in the very first meeting. Tom's idea was "two biscuits in one". Melody didn't try to suggest this idea was poorly received - she said that she personally didn't like it. She also never tried to suggest the popscuits were well received. She said her idea for heart-shaped biscuits were well received. They were - the announcer said they were a dead heat with Tom's idea.


Because most of it didn't happen. And a lot of the stuff she did do wrong relies on the validity of an ambiguous edit and people extrapolating one event out into a whole pattern of behaviour. Unless you want to get personal and specific and say things like "Zoe thought you were an intractable bitch", they were better off focussing on getting her to articulate her off-show CV if they wanted to grill her, because clearly she's quite consistently weak there.

Don't most of them lie? Lee McQueen and Yasmina Siadatan spring to mind, as does Mr Baggs. They all told porkies, 2 of them got hired. I'm sure a lot of the others have told big and small porkies also.

Yes they often do, maybe not as much as Melody. The candidates are picked for TV value and I imagine the producers knew fairly quickly that Melody was a fantasist and would be good value.

I didn't watch her that closely to notice she lied a lot, but she did go on and on and on about the same thing. She should have just said "OK flower, I messed up", not bang on and on and on.

I thought she would be a very strong contender right at the very start, but then she kept opening her mouth.......

Melody DID lie. There's no point arguing about that. Jheez. You guys will debate about anything.

Should be easy enough for you to point to the evidence, then.

Any section of the last 8 or show shows where she talked about her "business"

Either you are a WUM or you are related.

I wasn't even that keen on her.

You still haven't provided any evidence.

Apart from anything else, no one managed to pin her down on what her business actually does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS_hx...eature=related

OK, we already knew what she said.

No give us the evidence that she was lying.

Did you watch the France episode at all? Did you watch her interview passers-by ? Did you read the subtitles underneath? AND DID YOU HEAR WHAT MELODY SAID TO LEON?

She. Lied.

Did you notice how choppily edited that bit was? It's two clips, separated by a massive jagged cut. You're taking on trust that the woman she's talking about in the second clip is the same one she's talking to in the first. And, for that matter, that Melody is talking about the seat in the second clip, because she doesn't mention it specifically.

The fact that this wasn't covered in that episode, or on the You're Fired for that episode, OR in the You're Fired that Melody was on, or ever mentioned in any medium by any person connected to the show, when numerous other failings have been combed over, does rather begin to hint that they might not want viewers looking into the matter too closely.

Maybe someone could ask Melody about it in an interview and clear it up?

Actually, she said the focus group liked the heart shaped biscuits far more than any other idea and didn't say a single word about the two biscuits in one, strongly suggesting that they didn't like Tom's idea (which, interestingly, Melody herself then declared she didn't like ). Ok, so that's not outright lying, but it's seriously skewing the responses from the focus group to suit her own personal agenda.

She said the focus group liked the heart-shape better than any other shape, rather than any other idea. They did. She wasn't shutting down Tom's idea in saying this specifically, because Tom's idea was still viable with a heart shape (we see his notepad covered in lots of different shapes of 2-in-1 biscuits). She didn't skew the focus group findings at all. No we didn't see her talking up Tom's idea for two biscuits in one, but we saw Tom on the phone, so she clearly wasn't solely responsible for feeding back the focus-group findings.

It was because of Melody that the entire biscuit became over-conceptualised. They could have stuck with the "two biscuits in one" idea without adding the "snap and share" aspect.

Zoe had to coax Tom into feeding back his focus group findings.

She had to tell Melody to shut up to stop her whining on about her hearts idea. I'm not denying that Melody's got a gob on her, but I don't think Tom needed coaxing into talking - we're shown him talking before Zoe tells Melody to shut up whining.

It's not Melody's fault alone that snap and share was integrated into the product. She, Zoe, and Susan are all very keen on it from the second it's suggested, and Tom never voices any objections. It's even less her fault alone than "EveryDog" was Jim's, nobody objected, and at least one of the retailers said this idea was a good one, unlike that one.

The role-play I'd lay at her door, and 50% of the blame for fact that the biscuits were crap (both of which I think were important elements in the loss), but "snap and share" isn't something she ever pushed alone - everyone wanted to do it.